December 31, 2019 – 2 Peter 3:18

Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
—2 Peter 3:18

Another thing implied in the exhortation of our text is that grace in its commencement is imperfect and that its progress to maturity is gradual, for if it were perfect there could be no room for growth.90 Although in different individuals the vigor of spiritual life is different in degree, yet in most cases grace is, in its infancy, feeble. The indications of its existence may be clear, and though its action is lively, this is nothing more than the vivacity and strength of a healthy babe in Christ. For in young converts the knowledge of spiritual things, generally, is indistinct and limited, and the faith wavering. When their feelings are joyful, they can exercise confidence in God, but when a cloud overshadows them, they are cast down and sometimes driven to distrust the mercy and faithfulness of the Redeemer. Their pious affections also are unsteady and, though apparently strong, are nevertheless mingled with gross animal feelings and alloyed with selfishness.
Also, piety is subject to diseases [that] retard its progress and cause it, for a season, to decline. These declensions are so common that some have supposed that all Christians make a retrograde motion and lose something of the ground already gained. But there seems to be no just foundation for this opinion. In some saints, both those whose lives are recorded in Scripture and those who fall under our own observation, there is no evidence of backsliding, but there are very few who have professed piety who have not reason to confess that they have at some time forsaken their first love and become remiss in vigilance and, of course, unfruitful in their lives. And not infrequently, while in this feeble state, they are overcome by some temptation, so as not only to contract a sense of guilt, but also to bring reproach on the profession they have made. This frequency of spiritual decays is one of the chief causes that so few Christians rise to eminence in piety. A fall may, indeed, make a person more cautious ever afterwards, but one purchases experience at a dear rate who pays for it with a broken bone or a joint out of place.
The tendency of the heart, even in the best, to depart from God furnishes powerful reason for the exhortation to grow in grace, for in religion, there is no such thing as standing still. A Christian who makes no advancement is going backward. The only course of safety, therefore, as well as comfort, is to make vigorous efforts to grow in grace.
—Archibald Alexander